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Global growth in solar "the largest ever observed for any source"
- ChrisArchitect 6mo ago[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47831272 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47831272
- tristanj 6mo agoI've always found it amusing that the primary driver for solar innovation stems from China's goal ending its civil war with Taiwan. Any conflict with Taiwan would involve the US, which would blockade the Straits of Malacca and halt Chinese oil imports, putting on enough economic pressure to drive the war to a halt after several months. Any attempt to reclaim Taiwan would end in failure. This was a P0 national security issue, So China hyper-invested into alternative energy technologies, subsidizing and overproducing solar technologies at a loss, while investing in electric transportation and moving away from fossil fuels. It's paying off. Over the past 25 years, this strategy is proving to be very successful and by the end of this decade, the Malacca weakness will be overcome. As a result, the rest of the world gets to enjoy cheap solar energy and cheap EVs.
- wahern 6mo agoThe fact China had a huge smog problem, with hundreds of millions of people choking on coal emissions like it was 19th century London, also had something to do with it.
- unixhero 6mo agoAnd Shenzen as an example would be an absolute hellhole if they hadn't mandated all electric vehicles, from tuktuks, motorbikes (must be electric) and taxis. This would have impacted ability to engage in the rapid economic growth seen there.
- vrganj 6mo agoIt also sets up a Chinese-European green energy based alignment of interests to counter the toxic fossil Russo-American axis.
- tristanj 6mo agoAny alignment between China and Europe will be short lived. China is more technologically advanced than Europe, it doesn't need anything from Europe. Europe has little to offer China other than being a market to export Chinese goods, and political sway to hamper the Americans. The relationship has no mutual self-interest, it's one sided, and is bound to fall apart. China's undemocratic political system and mercantilist behavior are not reconcilable issues. These issues will compound over time to a breaking point. To counter the persistent trade deficit with China, Europe will need to impose a tariff on Chinese imports, otherwise its industry will be overrun by Chinese manufacturing and millions of jobs will be lost. This is already happening. Or Europe can accept China as the senior partner in the relationship, which it won't, due to pride and the European ideal that all countries are equal on the world stage. These are not solvable issues, the EU and China are not aligned at a fundamental level. In contrast, EU/Russia and EU/US relationships actually make more sense, because both partners have mutual self-interest to maintain a relationship.
- bryanlarsen 6mo agoEurope doesn't offer anything for China except customers, which is pretty much the only thing China wants from the world.
- taffydavid 6mo ago> In contrast, EU/Russia and EU/US relationships actually make more sense, because both partners have mutual self-interest to maintain a relationship. Would love to know how you can defend the claim that the EU and China are fundamentally not aligned, unlike the EU Russia and EU US. Russia is at war with a country that wants to join the EU. The US almost invaded EU territory at the start of this year and threatened to leave NATO. China and the EU have done nothing but sign trade agreements throughout all that time
- Animats 6mo agoBig pie chart is labelled "The share of each source that was used to meet changes in energy demand vs. 2024". What does that mean?
- abdullahkhalids 6mo agoMy guess. Total energy consumption in 2024 was x. Total energy consumption in 2025 was x + y. For example, solar PV was installed and led to increased electricity consumption. Or more oil was extracted and used to drive cars around more. They broke down y into all these different energy sources and made a pie chart. So roughly 25% of y was solar PV.
- deepfriedbits 6mo agoCorrect.
- benj111 6mo agoIsn't it still flawed? If a coal plant gets switched off, that needs to be replaced but this graph excludes it. Unless you do it properly rata, but then the graph is essentially showing all generating capacity that's been added?
- Lightkey 6mo agoThis isn't capacity.
- benj111 6mo agoThe parent used the example of 2024s usage being X and 2025s being x+y. So this shows us what y is. But the precise mix that supplied X no longer exists, due to closures, so something must have back filled that x. So is that pro rata from these figures? Yes I understand this isn't strictly capacity, but in practical terms, wind turbines and solar panels have been installed to allow this increase.
- Lightkey 6mo ago
- latentframe 6mo agoSolar scaling this fast looks to be less about the green against fossile but to be more about changing the cost structure of energy => fossil fuels are strongly marginal-cost, solar is capex heavy with almost zero marginal cost so that change alone has big impacts for how energy comes into the inflation
- soco 6mo agoDouble whammy, we could say? This is a lesson for any positive change: ethics only brings you so far, but find the economical way to do it and the change will work by itself.
- y0eswddl 6mo agoOnly in an environment where we continue to let a handful greedy people at the top control everything for the other 8B of us...
- benj111 6mo agoTrue, but ethics got us to the point where solar was economical. It's never just been about ethics, it's been about getting it to this point where it's cheaper.
- bryanlarsen 6mo agoFinding the economical way to do it costs a lot of money. The economies of scale that solar needed to reach before it became the low cost option were built on enormous subsidies from Germany, China and others.
- takihito 6mo agoIt's all thanks to President Trump's efforts, unfortunately.
- vrganj 6mo agoTrump doesn't get credit for the rest of the world doing the obvious thing and moving towards basically free energy that is good for the environment and frees us from dependence on despots.
- tristanj 6mo agoNo, this is a result of a concerted effort by the Chinese decades in the making.
- tim333 6mo agoI have it down as a normal exponential tech growth thing. Silicon solar was invented in the US and would have got big without the Chinese although they have sped it along rather. It's been fairly close to Kurzweil's doubling every couple of years prediction https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2016/03/futurist-ray-kurzweil-predicts-solar-industry-dominance-12-years/ https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2016/03/futurist-ray-k... and exponential growth could keep on for ages before we hit Kardashev 2.
- tristanj 6mo agoThat "prediction" is from 2016 and is ex-post-facto. China began investing tens of billions into solar in 2009, and quadrupled down in 2013 when it began pouring hundreds of billions in. It's easy to "predict" the future years after gigantic sums of money are invested into making something happen.
- perilunar 6mo ago> Overall, solar generated over 2,700 terawatt-hours last year, Terawatt-hours per year is a ridiculous unit — it contains three different units of time embedded in it (seconds, hours, and years) 2700 TWh/yr = 309 GW (Which happens to be about 37 W per person, or less than the average output of a 1 m² solar panel)